Dokgalbi Street infighting at Myong Dong (+ Culinary Note)

This actually happened during Week 1, but I didn't think of it then, and I haven't had a chance to write about it until now.

On the same day I toured the Jjimjilbang, I went with some friends to the shopping district of Chuncheon known as Myong Dong. It covers a few city blocks on the surface, goes up a few stories into the sky, and even decends beneath the street. (For the curious, Seoul also has a Myong Dong, but it takes up an area about the size of downtown St. Louis, depending on where you draw the boundries of that American district. You actually have to tell the taxi drivers which part of the Myong Dong you want to go to in Seoul or else you'd face a good hour's walk.) Myong Dong features several speciality shops and even more general merchandise shops. Zippos are incredibly expensive here, as is American paraphenalia in general, though cheaper Korean-made brands abound. Myong Dong is also home to Chuncheon's Dokgalbi Street, a side alley which features only one menu option: dokgalbi.

Dokgalbi is a fantastic dish that is a Chuncheon speciality. (I actually ate at the best dokgalbi establishment in Chuncheon recently, not on Dokgalbi Street, and thus have eaten the "best dokgalbi in the world".) Essentially, it is chicken marinated with spicy sauce fried up on a griddle that sits in the middle of the table. Other ingredients include cabbage, rice cakes, onions, and, if one desires, lettuce, garlic and extra spicy paste on the side. It is usually eaten in this way. The chicken will cook slowly, and while it cooks, one may pick at the rice cakes and vegetables. Whatever ingredient is being eaten, it should be picked out of the griddle with chopsticks, placed in a cool lettuce or mint leaf and any extra condiments. This is then wrapped and placed in the mouth. The griddle's ingredients are usually quite hot, and despite the cool leaf will burn the fingers a bit. After most of the meat and vegetables are gone, one can order rice which will be fried on the griddle once again until crispy. It is all quite delicious and one order can stuff up to two starving American stomaches, three moderately hungry ones. This is, incidentally, one of the very few native Korean dishes that one should eat with the fingers, and it is the second best meal I've had in Korea since my arrival. To drink, one usually has soju, a watered down version of vodka, though at this particular instance in the Myong Dong I had Coke. (This was a mistake, as I consumed it during the meal. The sweet flavor of the cola and the carbonation did not mix well with the spicy bouquet of the dokgalbi. Alcohol is to be much prefered, or if one cannot consume this, simple water. The spices are powerful and will not be offended by the sweet nothings of corporate beverages.)

Competition between the Dokgalbi Street establishments is fierce. Restaurant owners will come out to the front of their business to usher people in. They will offer free drinks, free rice, free desert, whatever it will take. (This is slightly odd as a single serving of dokgalbi, which is not very expensive, will feed at least two people and Koreans do not take tips. I wonder where they make their money...) If there are no potential customers to badger, the owners will insult each others' dokgalbi as they assert that theirs is the best ever made and no self-respecting native Korean (or even tourist) would dare even set a toe in anyone else's establishment. It makes for good dinner entertainment, at any rate.